Dark Souls II Launch Trailer - Jethro Tull Caps a Schizophrenic Marketing Campaign

Dark Souls II is launching this week, and Bandai Namco’s launch trailer caps off one of the most baffling marketing campaigns in recent memory. I mean, Jethro Tull, seriously?

First, we get the most hollow and charismatic pep-speech obviously aimed at NFL bros and the kind of guys who dig Chevy trucks. Then, Bandai Namco actually produced a trailer aimed at the target audience, as in the people who played the first two games.

Now that Dark Souls II is on the verge of finding it way to the masses, Bandai Namco Europe has an official launch trailer which starts off much like the previous one for the first 45 seconds before launching into a full blown rock video while blasting out Jethro Tull’s Locomotive Breath. What? I’m confused. Is there something in the lyrics that has anything to do with the themes of Dark Souls? Let’s take a look.

In the shuffling madness
Of the locomotive breath,
Runs the all-time loser,
Headlong to his death.
He feels the piston scraping —
Steam breaking on his brow —
Thank God, he stole the handle and
The train won’t stop going — No way to slow down.

Sounds a lot like Dark Souls II to me. The madness of this fantasy world FromSoftware has created pushes lost souls and wayfaring adventurers to edge of death over and over again, and no matter how many times they die, they just handle the situation and press on, never slowing down.

I know only Mr. Fantastic and Dhalsim can stretch that far, but it kind of fits. Jethro Tull has also appeared in video games before too, most noticeably the Final Fantasy series which has a frequently appearing Blue Magic spell called “Aqualung.”

Keep in mind that is is Bandai Namco Games EUROPE, so naturally they’ll use a song more popular on their side of the ocean. Why is it that their commercial is so much cooler and uses a famous song in an imaginative way, where as we get a Coors Light commercial disguised as a Dark Souls II advertisement? Are we that uncultured?

Dark Souls II launches today, March 11, on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The PC version is due to be released on April 25.

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